Mike Corthell

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Wealth, money and Christians

''If we can’t be trusted with money, we can’t be trusted with much in the kingdom of God. The tithe is what opens the door. Your offerings will determine the return.''

The subject of a Christian’s right to wealth has been the subject of question for many centuries. Even as a young child I had a hard time understanding the churches point of view on this subject which was for the most part, Christians are not supposed to have good things. Christians are to have small houses, used cars, buy your clothes from a discount store and so on. We are told in scripture that God owns it all: Psalm 24:1 “A Psalm of David. The earth is the LORD'S, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein.” The Hebrew word used here for ‘fullness’ is melo and means the all that is therein, that which fills, entire contents. Now the entire contents includes all the gold, all the silver, all the wealth that this earth holds. If that is all His, then as His children, why wouldn’t we be entitled to what is His? That is the question that I had when I was no more than ten years old. I have studied most of the verses in scripture and found that, for the most part, the church has missed the mark on this teaching. Part of the reason the church has taught against wealth is the fear of promoting greed. This concept is unbiblical as we will see that God speaks positively about material wealth.I will, in this study, begin in Genesis and go through each book and give a word for word meaning on what some refer to as ‘prosperity scriptures.’ God calls them promises. I will not touch on every single verse as there are thousands of them, but I will explain many of them so that when we get done you will have no doubts as to what is rightfully yours. We will look at a few verses for laying a foundation for this study so that we will understand what God has promised and how He fulfills the promise and what our role is in receiving the promise. I simply refer to these verses as the promises of God that His children should be living in. http://www.newswithviews.com/Anghis/roger144.htm